The Main youth center and Cokata Wiconi teen center are looking for sponsors to support art and athletic enrichment activities for our after-school and summer programs.

CRYP works hard to introduce the youth who attend our centers to the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle. As part of these efforts, we will be offering weeklong lacrosse workshops in the upcoming months for both children and teens. In order to hold these classes, we will need to purchase lacrosse balls, sticks, padding, and goal sets.

The art program at CRYP is also looking to expand in the upcoming months. We are looking to introduce kids to many different forms of artistic expression, including graffiti art, pottery, and painting. To allow the kids to experiment with these new art forms, we will have many diverse needs including canvases, paint, paint brushes, clay, glazing supplies, pottery supplies, acrylic paint, spray paint, exterior paint, and sealant.

We are actively looking for people willing to make monetary or in-kind donations to fulfill these needs. You can donate online by clicking the link below or by mailing donations to the Cheyenne River Youth Project, P.O. Box 410, Eagle Butte, SD 57625.

Sponsor a Birthday Cake at The Main!

Few days in a child's life are as precious as his or her birthday. Unfortunately, for far too many underprivileged children, that day passes with little celebration - if any at all. CRYP wants to make sure that the young children who attend The Main youth center have the birthday festivities they deserve.

Each month, The Main hosts a birthday party for the children whose birthdays fall during that month. To offset the cost of each party, CRYP seeks monthly sponsors to contribute $40 for the birthday cake. Please consider sponsoring a birthday cake in 2014-15! Every dollar makes such a difference in the lives of Cheyenne River's children.

Meet Our

Board of Directors

VICE PRESIDENT
Jeremy Patterson

TREASURER
Guthrie Ducheneaux

DIRECTORS
Peggy Gallipo
Jeffrey Meyer
Karla Abbott
Lonnie Heier

For more info and bios, click here!

Support CRYP When You Shop Online!

What if CRYP earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or, what if a percentage of every online purchase you made supported our cause?

Amazon, for example, will donate 0.5% of your purchase price to CRYP when you shop at smile.amazon.com. To make shopping even easier, you can add the AmazonSmile 1 Button to your web browser.

Then there are GoodSearch and GoodShop.

GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up.

GoodShop.com is an online shopping mall that donates up to 30% of each purchase to your favorite cause. Hundreds of great stores have teamed up with GoodShop so that every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause.

And, if you download the
"GoodSearch - Cheyenne River Youth Project - CRYP toolbar," our cause will earn money every time you shop and search online EVEN if you forget to go to the GoodShop or GoodSearch sites first! Click here to add the toolbar.

While you're online, you even can make a secure donation with your Capital One credit card. Simply click here. You even can add an easy-to-use widget for future contributions.

Needs List

CRYP relies on in-kind donations as well as funding to continue our mission. If you'd like to help, please check out our Needs List. You also may contact us at (605) 964-8200 if you'd like a copy of our most up-to-date list and price quotes for particular needs. Thank you for your support!

Our Mission

The Cheyenne River Youth Project is dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects and facilities, ensuring strong, self-sufficient families and communities.

November 2014 News

Winter is Coming!
Support the Christmas Toy Drive

Actually, with most of the country in the midst of a deep-freeze, winter is here! In Eagle Butte, CRYP staff and volunteers are busy planning the youth project's eagerly anticipated annual holiday parties for children and teens.

CRYPers also are deep into Christmas Toy Drive preparations, once again undertaking the gargantuan task of ensuring that Santa Claus comes to 1,500 children across the 2.8-million-acre Cheyenne River reservation. And they need your help to make this annual holiday miracle come to life!

If you're interested in sponsoring a Dear Santa letter, we still have more than 400 letters that need to be adopted!

We're happy to do the shopping ourselves, so if you'd rather contribute funds, please click the button below or visit our Crowdrise campaign.

Click here to learn more about how you can help support CRYP's Christmas Toy Drive this holiday season. Every contribution, no matter the size, will ensure that Cheyenne River's children receive what all children should have: a very merry Christmas.

Interested in Volunteering?

We Need YOU This Christmas!

Thanks to the wonderful donors around the world who support CRYP's long-running, annual Christmas Toy Drive, truckloads of gifts arrive at the organization's East Lincoln Street campus in December. But CRYP's job is not done when the gifts arrive. These gifts need to be ready for the children on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which means around-the-clock sorting, wrapping, tagging, and preparing to distribute literally thousands of Christmas presents.

This year's goal is to fulfill the "Dear Santa" wishes of 1,500 children in more than 20 communities across the Cheyenne River reservation. Each child will receive one or two gifts from his or her "Dear Santa" list, plus much-needed winter clothing. It's a tall order, one that means we need volunteers who are willing to join us in Eagle Butte in December.

As a volunteer, you'll help match the Santa lists with just the right gifts, you'll wrap the presents and prepare them for their families and communities, and when the holiday arrives, you'll help deliver beautifully wrapped packages to eager children and their grateful families. It's a life-changing experience, one that will bring new meaning and joy to the holiday season. Individual volunteers and volunteer groups are welcome.

If you're interested, please call the CRYP offices at (605) 964-8200, visit our website's " Volunteer" section to learn more about our volunteer program and access an application, and watch this video!

Cheyenne River Youth Project Christmas Toy Drive

There's Still Time to Win an
Authentic Lakota Star Quilt

There's still time to win one of two authentic Lakota star quilts through CRYP's annual star quilt raffle. Proceeds will support CRYP's brand-new Waniyetu Wowapi ("Winter Count") Art Park, which was dedicated in September.

In this year's raffle, ticket-holders will have a chance to win a distinctive, queen-size Lakota star quilt (see above) that will mimic a dramatic graffiti mural by acclaimed Minneapolis-based artist Peyton Scott Russell. Peyton, as the artist is known professionally, created the original piece of street art this year.

Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Bonnie LeBeau is hand-crafting the first quilt. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, executive director of Montana-based Hopa Mountain, donated the second quilt.

To purchase tickets, send cash, checks or money orders to: Cheyenne River Youth Project, Attn: Art Park Star Quilt, P.O. Box 410, Eagle Butte, SD 57625. You also may pay online. Simply click the "Donate Now" button below, and the corresponding button on our home page, and put "Art Park Star" in the notes section when paying with a credit card. Do not write the word "raffle" anywhere in the payment.

CRYP Launches Fall Semester of
Main University

On Monday, November 3, CRYP launched its fall semester of Main University, one of the not-for-profit youth organization's most popular and enduring programs. Recipient of a "Champion for Children" award from the South Dakota Coalition for Children, Main University is designed for 4- to 12-year-olds who attend The Main youth center; it was founded by former long-term volunteer Tracie Farrell in 2002.

Main University allows participants to take short courses that mimic those offered in a college setting. The courses give Cheyenne River children a chance to study subjects that may not be offered in school. The program uses language from higher education, such as "university," "credits" and "valedictorian," to familiarize students with their options in and after high school.

This year, Youth Programs Director Tammy Eagle Hunter and her staff of four youth programs assistants created the lesson plans for the five hourlong courses, and all five staff members will serve as instructors. This fall's courses will focus on art, diabetes education, and financial literacy. Learn more here!

Hats Off to Our Halloween Crew!

Halloween was another frightful holiday in Eagle Butte, thanks to the staff and volunteers who worked so hard to make it a success. This year's activities included a Halloween Carnival & Masquerade Ball, a Scary Movie Marathon, Ghoul-A-Grams, and of course the elaborate annual Haunted House.

CRYP Kicks Off its First-Ever Homecoming Dress Drive

As fall draws to a close, so does homecoming season for high school students across America. Spirit-week festivities and football-game revelry are long since ended, the toilet paper has been cleaned up from neighborhood trees and yards (well, mostly), and those prized dresses from The Big Night are back in bedroom closets. Perhaps they'll be worn again. Perhaps not.

If not, just imagine those dresses bringing happiness to teenage girls who are seemingly a world away, on South Dakota's remote 2.8-million-acre Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. CRYP is asking teenagers, and their parents, across the country to donate new or gently used homecoming dresses so they can become part of the 25-year-old, not-for-profit youth organization's annual Passion for Fashion program. The program takes place each spring at CRYP's Cokata Wiconi ("Center of Life") teen center in Eagle Butte.

CRYP created Passion for Fashion in 2001, and it remains one of the project's most popular and long-running programs. Its mission: to provide Cheyenne River teens with everything they need for a memorable prom night, while also fostering intergenerational exchange, bonding, self-esteem, and positive body image.

For details regarding how you can support CRYP's Passion for Fashion program through the 2014 Homecoming Dress Drive, click here and scroll to the bottom of the article. And to learn more about the program, check out this video!

2014 Passion For Fashion

November Partner of the Month:

O.P. and W.E. Edwards Foundation

As a grassroots, not-for-profit organization, the Cheyenne River Youth Project relies on a variety of organizational partners for support as it pursues its ongoing mission in the Cheyenne River community. To show our deep appreciation for all that these valued partners do for us, we've created a Partner of the Month initiative - and for November, that partner is the O.P. and W.E. Edwards Foundation.

Started more than 50 years ago in memory of twin brothers, the O.P. and W.E. Edwards Foundation is a small family foundation operating out of Red Lodge, Montana, with offices located at the base of the Beartooth Mountains. The board, which consists of seven family members of the original benefactors, spans four generations scattered throughout the United States and around the world. The foundation has a General Fund, Arts Fund, Sky and Earth Fund, Environmental Fund, Sound Justice Fund, and W.E.E. Fund. You can learn more about the foundation, and our partnership, here!

Thank you so much for your interest in our youth project, and for your ongoing support as we pursue our mission in the community.

To learn more about the Cheyenne River Youth Project and its programs, and for information about making donations and volunteering, call (605) 964-8200 or visit
www.lakotayouth.org. And, to stay up to date on the latest CRYP news and events, follow the youth project on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Sincerely,

All of us at the
Cheyenne River Youth Project